The increasing use of data intensive services, such as streaming video, over Wireless Wide Area Networks (WWANs) places increased demand on those networks for higher data rates. One way of increasing the amount of data communicated over a WWAN is the use of Carrier Aggregation (CA). Carriers comprise spans of radio spectrum over which a WWAN can communicate information. Since the date rates for this information are limited by the carrier's bandwidth and since bandwidths of continuous spans of radio spectrum for carriers are often limited in size, especially in privately owned portions of the radio spectrum, combining multiple carriers through carrier aggregation can increase data rates.
To harness the potential for increased data rates to meet increasing demand, wireless standards, such as the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE) standards, provide specifications for CA. As an extension of those specifications, Working Group (WG) 1 of the Technical Specification Group (TSG) for the Radio Access Network (RAN) has discussed the introduction of a New Carrier Type for CA. Some motivations for introducing the NCT include enhanced spectral efficiency, improved support for a heterogeneous network, and energy efficiency.
Reference will now be made to the exemplary embodiments illustrated, and specific language will be used herein to describe the same. It will nevertheless be understood that no limitation of the scope of the invention is thereby intended.